1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of litter boxes for small domesticated animals, and particularly for house cats.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is common to provide small domesticated animals which live within human dwelling houses with litter box containers for receiving the excrement of the animal. Such litter box containers are commonly associated with domestic house cats, but are applicable to any animal which, by training or natural inclination, will void itself within an established area.
The most common form of litter box, particularly directed to a house cat, is a square-shaped plastic tub which is filled with urine-absorbant litter material to a depth of 2 to 3 inches. The litter material, or litter compound, may be either clay or granular cellulose. The litter material is normally sifted after a particular period of use, such as 3 days, with a hand-held scoop in order to remove, insofar as is possible by this inexact manual method, accumulated solid animal waste.
Problems are immediately presented by this system. The filtering of the litter material and extraction of the animal feces with a hand tool of any nature is generally unpleasant to humans. It may also be unhealthful in some cases. This is particularly indicated by the warning affixed to the products of most litter box and litter material manufacturers indicating that pregnant women should not clean litter boxes because of the danger of toxoplasmosis. The litter material kicks up dust when it is moved around and sifted--even where the so-called "dust free" litter materials are employed. When the solid waste of the animal is extracted from the litter material, it must be further put into another container, e.g. a plastic bag, for disposal. This is a particularly unpleasant, unsanitary, and sometimes messy process.
After the recommended period of use, often 7 to 10 days, has expired, it is necessary to dump the litter material from the tub into a bag for disposal. This process is even more prone to cause dust than the sifting. It is also odorous and messy, and may allow the undesirable escape of the contaminated litter material into the environment of the house.
Further, after disposal of the used litter material, the plastic tub, or litter tray, must itself be cleaned. Litter tray manufacturers generally recommend cleaning and wiping the tray with a solution of ammonia. This task, involving strong chemicals, is not always easily, readily, nor safely performed. Many households do not have sink facilities for washing contaminated litter trays. Although the cleansing of the litter tray need not be performed as often when tray liners (discussed below) are used, it is ultimately essential that any litter tray should be sanitized, or else, due to its exposure to animal urine, it will produce a permeating unpleasant odor.
Certain products have appeared on the market in an attempt to obviate the problems described above. Thus, there exists a composition of non-absorbant, "reusable" litter compound which is used with a special litter box. The urine of the animal flows through the non-absorbant litter compound and through a grid false bottom within the litter box. The perforations of the grid are smaller than the granules of the litter compound, permitting drainage of the urine through the grid into a pan which constitutes the bottom of the box. In addition to requiring periodic disposal of the solid fecal waste of the animal which is deposited in the litter compound, in this system it is most desirable more frequently to dispose of the liquid urine waste of the animal in order to avoid undesirable odors in the house. Thus, the necessity for sifting the litter compound to extract the solid waste, and for cleaning the litter box, are not abated by the use of a "reusable" litter compound.
It is further known that hand-held scoops may be perforated with small openings which facilitate the sifting of the litter material while retaining the solid animal waste. No matter how efficacious the design of the scoop, it still needs to be manually operated, and sifting with it is an unpleasant task. Moreover, the scoop must be cleaned and stored between usages.
Finally, several varieties of litter box liners exist. The liners are both scented and unscented, and come in various sizes and colors. In most cases they are simply a plastic bag. In some cases a 33 gallon 1.5 mil thickness plastic garbage bag, or a cut-down portion thereof, is actually vended as a litter box liner. When such liners are employed, either the entire bag and its contents must be thrown out after a few days, or the litter contents must be sifted in some manner to remove fecal matter.